


Promise

by DottyDot



Series: How It Could Happen [6]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Political Jon, jonsa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 23:22:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17907650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DottyDot/pseuds/DottyDot
Summary: This was more than a bended knee, this was deeper than the promise to the North, this was everything. It was love. It was also heartbreak.





	Promise

 

  
"I was a fool for not listening to you before going to Dragonstone."

Sansa stared at Jon, she had not expected that. It felt like dredging up dust covered books in some forgotten library now. So much had happened, changed.

They stood on the castle wall, darkness above and below, surrounded in the deep, still quiet, the cold freezing everything into place, as if even the coming dawn could not break them into life again.

Everything has changed even while it seemed that nothing could shake them from this. There was no time for arguing over what had or hadn't been said or done. She did not know why on the eve of battle he should bring this up now. But then, when she had met him at Castle Black she had the same urge. She had felt compelled to tell him she was wrong, she needed his forgiveness. He felt it too, that insatiable need for her understanding. For some reason, they shared the compulsion to set everything aright between them.

She stepped closer to him, their shoulders nearly touching now as they stared into the darkness, looking for something they had yet to acknowledge.

"It was nothing, Jon. What you've done, bringing her army and her dragons. You've saved us." She paused, searching what was visible of his face for any relief, any sign that her words meant something to him, waiting for him to look at her, "You have saved us all."

"I may have doomed us all."

"Sam didn't mean that. He's upset, but when he calms down, he'll understand. You had to bring her here. It's not about how any of us feel about her, it's about survival."

"Aye."

Jon looked away from her, staring out over the snow to where the armies were encamped. He spoke softly, even with Brienne below guarding the steps, he was ever cautious.

"I've been tormenting myself ever since I left, for not staying as you advised, sending someone who would have been a less valuable prisoner. Torturing myself for what I did while I was away."

"You must know what I think about it."

"You don't know what I did."

"Yes, I do. I've been playing this game longer than you. I was groomed in it by Cersei and Margaery and Petyr."

"But--"

"I saw The Queen at dinner, her eyes, her smile, her hands." Sansa felt sick saying it, knowing what shame it caused him, but it must be said. "I know what you did, and what you are going to _keep_ doing." Jon sucked in a breath, but Sansa continued, still staring at his face, although he would not look at her. "With dragons flying above Winterfell, I hope you didn't expect to be able to stop." Her words were sharp, painful, but not in anger, in urgency, in fear. Their salvation was also a threat, an unwieldy power, uncontrollable, but hopefully, directed.

"I know that." He said, failing to suppress his own frustration that she felt she had to tell him. "I learned my lessons, the same as you."

She could not feel relief, but it was one burden less to know just how far his loyalty for the North ran. It was deeper than anything else. "Did you speak with Bran?"

"Aye."

Jon's eyes fell to his feet, his boots pushing the snow into cracks on the wall. The scrape of the boots against stone was pleasant in its way, sounding much louder for the quiet of the night. "It's a strange thing to learn what you've always wanted to know, and have it tear everything you knew about yourself apart."

"I'm sorry." Sansa couldn't help the tears, they surprised her, how deeply she felt for what he must feel. There was nothing to say, what comfort could she give? Jon didn't usually talk about his feelings with her, but she knew what they must be. To yearn for an unknown mother, only to lose a most beloved father. It was cruel, and it was just that cruelty they had come to expect from the gods.

"It's a relief" he said, his voice impossibly rough and tender.

This she did not expect, this reaction she had not anticipated. "What?"

He stopped his shuffling and looked out again into the night. "I've felt like a failure, like I couldn't live up to father's ideals because I've been living a lie. But now I find, I've been following in his steps all along. I thought I was a bastard three times over, by birth and acts and desires, but I'm not. Our father lived a lie and jeopardized his own marriage, all of your lives, for my life, for a promise. I made a promise to the North, a promise to _you_ , and I will do anything to keep my promise."

Sansa hadn't ever looked away from him, and now he looked to her, his eyes filled with so much she could not discern every warring emotion. Was he lying? Trying to allay her fears? No, Jon did not lie to her. He had accepted the truth of his parentage, found peace with the lie. He wanted her to accept his reassurance, that he had promised her, and she could trust in that. She nodded. Jon had long since won her trust.

"Have I made a believer of you?" He smiled as if he meant to tease her, but she knew he meant it. He so desperately needed to know that he had.

She reached out her hand to grab his arm, securing his attention, ashamed of how her words before the battle for Winterfell must have stuck with him, how she had hurt him. "I don't doubt you, Jon, and I won't again."

His hand came to rest on hers. "I know. It's you and me that will see the North through this."

She squeezed his arm a little, accepting their mutual burden. It had been so long since she had been near someone she did not fear. Jon's breath puffed into the cold air, a deep sigh for what had happened, what was to come, "It was always going to be the two of us that saw this through, wasn't it?"

"It was the two of us who reclaimed Winterfell, and it will be we who defend her."

Sansa wished for her mother. Jon wished for the man he called father. Winterfell was their comfort and strength. It was also a special kind of pain. The sweetest and most bitter memories of their lives bound in the stones of the castle, buried beneath their feet, yet, they were their strength on which they stood, the fortress on which they relied.

They heard it before they saw it, a dragon flying above them, so high and dark they recognized it by how he blocked the stars, lights extinguished by wing and tail. The dragon circled ever nearer the earth, descending from the canvas of heroes and myths, eclipsing the moon, then rising higher and away, leaving the humans below to their fears and their hopes.

Sansa felt a strange calmness at the sight, she could not tremble now, not after what she had seen and what she had heard. As the dragon merged with the darkness again, Jon expelled a pained breath and a confession. "I'm glad father lived a lie."

Sansa gripped Jon's arm more tightly, telling him she heard, unwilling to speak because she knew. There was only reason he would say such a thing, and she knew.

"You didn't ask why I was a bastard thrice over."

"We shouldn't talk of this."

Jon turned to face her fully now, unafraid of her seeing his face, willing for her to understand his feelings at last. His hand rising from her grasp of his arm to hers, his other hand as well, holding her securely, firmly, gently. "I want to talk of this."

"You will regret--"

"I am glad I am not father's son."

Jon stared at her waiting, knowing she would understand him. She did, in spite of her discomfort, she understood, for hadn't she had a similar thought when Bran had told her? But it was wrong, surely?

Her eyes fell to his hand on her arm as she tried to swallow her panic. She had missed him, she knew he had missed her. Missed was insufficient. She had ached for him to come home to her, yearned for it as if she was once again a captive screaming for freedom. She had not felt herself while he was away. There was no peace, no comfort, until he was here, with her, only an outstretched arm away. She was safe in Winterfell, her brother and sister had returned, thousands of men loyal to her surrounded her, but she had not _breathed_ since he left.

How her heart had been broken to think he had given everything away for love, only to have her hope fully restored upon watching Jon with the foreign Queen, but for what? He must keep her happy until the war was won. And then what? Wouldn't he still have to make her happy?

She was elated; she was crushed. She wanted him to say more, but he must say nothing at all. She was so close to flying and so close to falling; she could not bear it. In no girlish dream had she imagined that this was how love would feel.

She forced herself to raise her eyes to his face. His good, brave, sorrowful, hopeful, fearful, gentle face. This was more than a bended knee, this was deeper than the promise to the North, this was _everything_. It was love. It was also heartbreak.

Jon waited patiently for her to react. She touched a hand to his cheek, "You are every bit his son, but you are not my brother."

Her other hand landed on his other cheek, and she kissed him as he had kissed her all those months ago. A sign of their trust and love landing on his forehead, the first time her lips had ever touched his skin, a gentle echo of what he had so freely given her.

His hands covered hers, their faces so close together even the night could not hear his words, "When it is finished?"

"When it is finished," she promised.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Never fear! I am still working on chapter 10 of "Healing." It will be up in a day or two. ❤️


End file.
